North Dakota’s decades-long efforts to aid farmers by reshaping the weather through “cloud seeding” is facing fierce opposition in the state Capitol, where legislation could outlaw the practice, which is used across the West and has drawn global interest to one of the nation’s least populous states.
Cloud seeding is done by airplanes releasing tiny particles of silver iodide in clouds to reduce the size of hail and increase rainfall to help crops in the semi-arid climate. Opponents see cloud seeding as ineffective, harmful and deceitful, and point to a number of counties that have ended their participation in weather modification, as recently as last fall.
“We are tired of government controlling our weather,” Williams County farmer Doug Stangeland told a state Senate panel on Thursday. “It’s time that God does what he does. Let the creator of the weather do what he does.”
North Dakota’s hail suppression program is the longest-running aerial cloud seeding program in the world and has used airplanes since the early 1960s, said Darin Langerud, director of the Atmospheric Resource Division of the state Department of Water Resources.
The North Dakota bill introduced by Republican Sen. Todd Beard would do away with weather modification and penalize the practice as a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to 30 days in jail and/or a $1,500 fine.
Berthold-area farmer Roger Neshem, who sat on his county’s weather modification authority, said local concerns went unaddressed by officials, including flights he said were outside of permitted areas.
Click here to see more...